There was space for almost none of her things in the small cell she’d been assigned, but she was going to take as many boxes of books as she could anyway. She could store them under the bed and stack them in the corners. Her books were all important to her, and were so much a part of her life with her father, and had meant so much to him, that she couldn’t let them all go into storage. She combed his bookshelves for hours that night, pulling out the ones she wanted to take with her. She decided to take her favorite Nancy Drews since they had been her first mystery books, and were symbolic of her early life with him. And taking his favorites was like taking him with her. She was up long after midnight making stacks of their most beloved books, some of them first editions he had treasured. She treated them all with reverence, and the following night packed them all in boxes Elena had gotten her.
She wasn’t sad about leaving her school, since she had just started recently and had no close friends there yet. It was the house that would be hard to leave. She had lived there all her life, and her father had been in it for twenty years before that. It was like leaving the womb, to go out in an unfamiliar world, full of strangers, and a way of life in the convent that was totally new to her. She had no idea how it would work out, or what would happen to her if it didn’t. With her grades, she could have gotten into any boarding school, but they all seemed cold and too big to her. In an odd way, the convent seemed friendlier, and she was used to living with adults.
Bill had promised to drive her over on Sunday with all her things. And their house would be put up for rent the following week after all their belongings were cleared out. Elena had been told to give her father’s clothes away, and the moving men would pack the rest and keep it in storage at the moving company until the day Alex would be old enough to go through it, and maybe move back into their home again. But that day was a long way off, after college. Eight years away, after high school and university, or when she turned twenty-one. She had a long road to travel until then. And the next chapter of her life would begin on Sunday at St. Dominic’s. She had no idea what it would be like living there, or how long she’d stay. Maybe a few months or a year or two, and after that the fates would decide what would happen to her.
—
Alex was waiting in the living room with Elena when Bill came to pick her up on Sunday morning. She had six suitcases of clothes, twelve boxes of books, her typewriter, and the lamp from her bedroom with blue lambs on it that she’d had since she was a little girl. Her father had always told her that the lambs were blue because they thought she’d be a boy, but as it turned out, they’d gotten lucky when she turned out to be a girl. She had fallen asleep looking at that lamp every night, so she took it with her. And she had her father’s favorite crime books with her, the Nancy Drews she had loved most, some other mystery books that had inspired her, and the binders with her stories in them. And she had packed a sweater of her father’s that still smelled like him, and her pillow from her bed. Everything else would be stored.
Elena started crying long before Bill arrived, and she had promised to visit Alex at the convent whenever she could. She had to look for a new job, after more than fifteen years with the Winslows, and she was dreading finding a new employer, and heartbroken that Alex couldn’t stay in the house with her. Alex clung to her and sobbed before she left, and Elena pressed a little religious medal into her hand for good luck. It was agony walking out of the house for the last time, and just watching her do it, Bill had tears in his eyes when he started the car, an SUV crammed full of Alex’s belongings. It was the saddest thing he’d ever seen. She sat in the front seat, crying and holding her childhood lamp, and neither of them spoke on the way to St. Dominic’s. There was nothing left to say except how terrible he felt that she had lost her father and her home, and the housekeeper she loved. Pattie and her children had come to say goodbye to her the night before, and they had all cried too. It was a tough situation, but out of everyone’s control, and Pattie said she hoped that Alex would be well cared for at the convent. She had talked to her husband about letting Alex stay with them, but they had no room, were already jammed to the rafters with their own four children, and didn’t want the responsibility of another child.
Bill had filled out the paperwork on Friday authorizing Alex’s transfer to the parochial school near St. Dominic’s, and her transcript would be sent there. And he and Mother MaryMeg had agreed that a small amount would be deposited to the convent’s account every month to pay for her room and board, which the archdiocese had approved.
When they reached the convent, the nuns were coming out of the church next door. Many of them had worn their habits to attend mass, but the younger ones hadn’t, and rarely wore them anymore. Mother MaryMeg spotted them when they drove up, and she asked the nuns to help them unload the car and take Alex’s things upstairs. She had given considerable thought to Alex living with them, and had assigned three of the nuns to supervise her, although everyone would help if necessary. Sister Regina had volunteered immediately and had bonded with Alex over dinner and when she showed her the room. She looked barely older than Alex on Sunday morning with her blond hair in a braid, in white pants and a pink tee shirt. She was unnervingly pretty for a nun, which had concerned Mother MaryMeg from the first, but her vocation appeared sound. She had also assigned Sister Thomas, who was the nun with children of her own. She had groaned and laughed when the mother superior discussed it with her. “Not again! That’s why I came here, to get away from teenagers forever.” But she was good humored about it, and willing to give it a try. And Sister Xavier Francis was in her early thirties and a teacher, had a great knack with kids, and could help with her homework if need be, particularly Latin and math. All three of them were waiting for her on Sunday, and several of the others carried her heavy bags and boxes up the stairs to the third-floor room. No one could move an inch once they set her suitcases down, and her boxes of books were piled high on the bed. Alex set down her lamp and typewriter on the desk, and Sister Xavier looked at the old Smith Corona with awe.
“What a beautiful machine!”
“I use it to write mystery stories,” Alex said cautiously, not sure how they’d feel about that. “Crime stories, actually.” And the young nun’s eyes lit up at the words.
“I love crime stories!”
“That’s what’s in the boxes.” Alex grinned. “They’re my father’s favorite books.”
“Who are your favorites?” She reeled off a list of her own, including Dashiell Hammett, Agatha Christie, Eric Ambler, Frederick Forsyth, Robin Cook, and a long list of books that Alex and her father had read, and some Alex hadn’t.
“I’ve read a lot of them.” Alex smiled. “I used to love Agatha Christie when I was younger.” She had recently read The Silence of the Lambs and loved it. “My father didn’t like women writers. He said women can’t write crime, only a man. I’ve read a lot of male writers.”